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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Week at Hedgebrook with Carolyn Forche

We celebrated our Lady of Guadalupe Day with oranges and chocolates, with poems and wood smoke on our clothes. For a week we were released from our outer lives in order to explore interior landscapes, our responsibilities to ourselves. I wrote seven poems in seven days. I have never done that before. Our ages ranged from 35 to 65, our geography, diverse. In March, Carolyn Forche will run another "Master Class" at Hedgebrook and if you can find your way there, you won't be sorry. She is a generous teacher, a fun person to hang out with, and of course, a stunning poet. Applying to the Master Class gets you into Hedgebrook, but it doesn't effect your ability to apply again. Do it.
(photo credit: Kelli Russell Agodon) P.S. The March class isn't listed yet, but it is happening. Contact Amy Wheeler and she can get you the exact dates and the application. And yes, this is a retreat exclusively for women, the only one in the world.

3 comments:

Susan, how wonderful for you to have had this respite! And such inspired productivity, too... I'm convinced that the combination of land, water, tasty and nourishing food, solitude, and the companionship of other women at Hedgebrook are what makes it possible, and for so many, year after year. And sorry that you're having a hard re-entry... it's not surprising!

Susan Rich is the author
of four collections of poetry, most recently, Cloud Pharmacy and The Alchemist’s Kitchen, which was a Finalist for the Foreword
Prize and the Washington State Book Award. Her other books include Cures Include Travel (2006)
and The Cartographer’s Tongue /
Poems of the World (2000) which won the PEN USA Award for Poetry and
the Peace Corps Writers Book Award. She is the recipient of awards from
Artist’s Trust, 4Culture, The Times Literary Supplement of London, Seattle
Mayors Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and the Fulbright Foundation. Susan's poems have been published in many journals including: Antioch Review, Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, and The Southern Review.

Currently, she is Professor of Creative Writing and Film Studies at Highline College, outside of Seattle, WA.. Susan also works as the poetry editor for The Human journal based in
Istanbul, Turkey and along with Kelli Russell Agodon is founder of Poets on the Coast: A Writing Retreat for
Women. She is one of the editors of the anthology, The Strangest of Theatres: Poets Writing Across Borders published
by McSweeney’s and the Poetry Foundation (2013). Susan lives in Seattle,
WA and writes in the House of Sky, a few blocks from the Puget Sound.